1. Technical Field
This application relates to techniques used in connection with write caching.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer systems may include different resources used by one or more host processors. Resources and host processors in a computer system may be interconnected by one or more communication connections. These resources may include, for example, data storage devices such as those included in the data storage systems manufactured by EMC Corporation. These data storage systems may be coupled to one or more servers or host processors and provide storage services to each host processor. Multiple data storage systems from one or more different vendors may be connected and may provide common data storage for one or more host processors in a computer system.
A host processor may perform a variety of data processing tasks and operations using the data storage system. For example, a host processor may perform basic system I/O operations in connection with data requests, such as data read and write operations.
Host processor systems may store and retrieve data using a storage device containing a plurality of host interface units, disk drives, and disk interface units. The host systems access the storage device through a plurality of channels provided therewith. Host systems provide data and access control information through the channels to the storage device and the storage device provides data to the host systems also through the channels. The host systems do not address the disk drives of the storage device directly, but rather, access what appears to the host systems as a plurality of logical disk units. The logical disk units may or may not correspond to the actual disk drives. Allowing multiple host systems to access the single storage device unit allows the host systems to share data in the device. In order to facilitate sharing of the data on the device, additional software on the data storage systems may also be used.
To facilitate uninterrupted operation of the host or server as it reads and writes data from and to the storage system, as well as executes application programs for use by users, the storage system may use a write cache that allows data from the server to be temporarily stored in the write cache prior to being written to a storage device. As such, the server can send data to the storage system and quickly be provided an acknowledgement that the storage system has stored the data. The acknowledgement is sent even though the storage system has only stored the data in the write cache and is waiting for an appropriate, convenient time to store the data on a physical storage device. As known in the art, storing data to a write cache is typically much faster than storing data directly to a physical storage devices such as disk drives. Consequently, the write cache buffers a large amount of data in anticipation of subsequently storing that data to a physical storage device.
One conventional data storage system includes two storage processors and an array of disk drives. Each storage processor includes, among other things, a local write cache. The local write caches mirror each other. Mirroring the cache protects data in the event of a storage processor failure.
During operation, the storage processors perform read and write operations on behalf of one or more external hosts. Since the contents of the local write caches are mirrored, the storage processors initially attend to write operations in a write-back manner. That is, the write policy of the storage processors involves acknowledging host write operations once the write data is stored in both write caches. By the time the external hosts receive such acknowledgement, the storage processors may not have yet evicted the write data from the write caches to the array of disk drives.